There was some progress. The Philippines jumped to 105th
from 129th (the closer you get to first place, the cleaner your
economy). India improved one place to 94th. Yet even some of the
good news is cautionary. Malaysia raised its overall ranking,
but scored the worst globally in a forthcoming Bribe Payers
Index, the Wall Street Journal reported.

These results show that Asia’s anti-corruption efforts are
still more about public relations than substance. That needs to
change if the region is to be a prosperous and stable place in
the long run. Leaders of all the major countries indulge in much
talk about creating independent courts, strong ministries, a
free press and networks of outside watchdogs, all while doing
little.

Falling Behind

There is no good excuse for Asia to be falling behind --
not with a critical mass of world growth concentrated there and
strong public support on the side of the reformers. The longer
Asia takes to get serious about this issue, the bigger the
threat to economic progress.

Graft is incredibly difficult to measure in any one nation,
never mind comparing it across borders. Tremendous effort goes
into hiding and perpetuating the gray economy, often most
enthusiastically at the highest levels of government. Whichever
barometer you track, the odds are that graft is far more
rampant, ingrained and damaging than data suggest.

The hold that Asia’s elite has on wealth and power has
grown even stronger since the region’s 1997 crisis and the
U.S.’s crash in 2008. The ascendance of obscenely wealthy
businesspeople in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Thailand and elsewhere helps explain why Asia isn’t
enjoying more homegrown entrepreneurship. Nowhere is that truer
than in China, which has become Asia’s largest economy in the
interim and may surpass the U.S. in the next decade or so.

Xi Jinping, who will become China’s president next year, is
making a very public show of tackling the corruption that has
damaged the Communist Party’s legitimacy.

“A mass of facts tells us that if corruption becomes
increasingly serious, it will inevitably doom the party and the
state,” Xi told China’s Politburo last month. “We must be
vigilant.”

China doesn’t release an official Gini coefficient, an
index that attempts to measure income inequality. A new report
from Chengdu’s Southwestern University of Finance and Economics
put it at 0.61 in 2010, a figure that’s surely getting worse and
should worry Beijing. The index ranges from 0, which represents
perfect equality, to 1, which implies absolute inequality.
Readings above 0.4 are sometime seen as a tipping point at which
risks of social instability increase.

First Target

This year’s Bo Xilai scandal has China’s 1.3 billion people
more interested than ever in the huge bank accounts being
amassed by modestly paid public servants. The question is how
far Xi will take this anti-corruption drive. Li Chuncheng
appears to be among its first targets. A deputy party secretary
of the southwestern Sichuan province, Li is under investigation
on suspicion of what the official Xinhua News Agency calls
“severe violation of discipline.”

The risk is that Xi takes down a couple of big targets and
then returns to business as usual. China’s problem isn’t a few
rogue and entrepreneurial public officials, but a political
system that turns a blind eye to rent-seeking on a scale
unmatched in history. The most cursory of random lifestyle
checks would show a staggering number of Ferraris and
Lamborghinis in the garages of politicians who on paper should
struggle to buy a new Toyota.

That’s certainly where Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is falling
short in Indonesia. Yudhoyono, president since 2004, scored some
headline-grabbing graft victories early on. He has been less
successful in flushing out the rot that former dictator Suharto
institutionalized during almost 32 years in power. Indonesia
slipped 18 places on Transparency International’s list in the
last 12 months alone, falling behind Egypt.

It should be a lesson for Benigno Aquino in the
Philippines. President since 2010, he has wasted little time
pursuing high-profile cases against predecessor Gloria Arroyo
and her administration, including ousting Supreme Court Chief
Justice Renato Corona. But even for leaders doing the right
things, efficient and corruption-free government that ends
poverty and broadens the reach of rapid growth is a long, long
way off.

(William Pesek is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions
expressed are his own.)